Muchuu
by Yui Miyamoto
Summary: A teenage Ryuichi struggles with his identity and persists to make his dreams come true.


**Fandom: Gravitation  
Title: Muchuu.  
Pairing: Ryuichi + Touma  
Rating: PG**

**Description: A teenage Ryuichi struggles with his identity and persists to make his dreams come true****.**

**Disclaimer: Yui does not own Gravitation or all the music that****'****s presented here. I am, however, the owner of the ****"****lyrics****"****/sing along version modified for each character.**

**Muchuu. (Freedom.)  
By miyamoto yui**

**[Ryuichi – ****"****Ikiteru****" ****sung to 'Ibara no Namida' by L'arc en Ciel]**

There was nowhere else to go.

I ran away from home with no one really to turn to. I had only some money in the bank, but what else could a high-school graduate do in this society? I didn't want to be anything but a singer, no matter what my parents said.  
I couldn't take it anymore because it was overbearing. The constant looks of disapproval by all the people around me saying, "Why did you get your ears pierced? Are you gay or something?" Or the comment about my hair that went like this, "Why'd you dye your hair? Are you starving for attention or something?"

No, I wasn't. It was a way of expressing myself. It was just a way to become "myself". To find myself in the multitude of faces and feelings I had deep inside of me. I just didn't know how to deal with all the changes going through my head and my life that it came out like this.  
And who were they to say that it was "wrong"?

This wasn't right or wrong. It was a matter of being comfortable with myself.

All these years, I was this proper little boy that followed everything my parents said. On the side, I'd do some things to distinguish myself from my family, but in the end, they didn't pay attention to my words while I was growing up, consumed at work or looking good in front of other people. So, what if I didn't care about what other people thought of me?

That made me the freak of the family? It sure did.

"Different" was what my relatives whispered about me.

My eyes searched around for something. For anything, in fact. I wanted something to guide me to where I needed to go. I needed to get to that contest, even if I just made this single song on a demo tape with my guitar playing.  
It wasn't that I was being insensitive. I just didn't want to live a life where I wasn't comfortable being the way I was. And if being a poor, starving artist driven to insanity was the way to go, it was my choice.  
It was no one else's. It was mine and my alone.

As I walked through the busy streets of Tokyo with my duffel bag, I looked up to all the tall buildings, wanting to reach far above them. That's how far I wanted to go. The sky wasn't the limit. I wanted to be the sun itself.  
I wanted to touch EVERYTHING.

"Impossible" was what they told me, but what was so impossible about that? "You sold out. Not me," was my reply to these arguments. It made them laugh. It made me cringe. It made me more passionate to crush them with their own words. I was going to come back to them and smile at them.  
Just because you were weak didn't mean I was going to be. Don't put your insecurities on me. I have my own, thank you very much.

My stomach growled loudly. "Why didn't I at least eat before I left?" I scolded myself.  
And so I trekked on down to the nearest W's to at least get a hamburger with a soda.

Life was funny that way. You could have all these dreams, but your basic needs still needed to be taken care of. This was the first purchase that would deplete my savings.

I was riding myself on this contest. Win or lose, I was going to keep on trying. No matter what jobs I had to try or the kind of life I'd have to live.  
People could just laugh at me for all I cared. It was the same as living at home.

A dream wasn't just a dream to me. It was a reality waiting to be fulfilled.

That's how idiotic and idealistic I was about everything. And I would protect this innocence, even though I knew I was acting like a child with an adult approach to things. Or was it an adult mentality with a childish method?

Whatever it was, it suit me just fine.

As I sat in a booth by the window, I looked out onto the street. There was a blond boy with white gloves and a suit standing across the street. He was watching me and I took a sip of my cola, getting nervous at being stared at by this weirdo. I wondered what he was looking at and maybe I was just imagining things, but he crossed the street. I ignored the whole scene until I found him slipping into the seat across me with a smile and his hands folded.  
"Yes?" I asked with a raised eyebrow, creeped out all the same.  
Without shame, he took out an envelope and presented it to me.  
"What's this for?" I gave him an icy look.

My past was haunting me, wasn't it…?

"I've searched for you all over the damn country. And now, I find you here of all places."  
"Excuse me?" I said while eating my hamburger.  
"You went on a date with my friend a year ago."  
I looked at him, unable to say anything. I didn't want to deny it, but nor did I want to lie about it. I didn't want to do the whole stupid, lame excuse of, "I think you have the wrong person."

With annoyed eyes, I harshly asked, "And what does it have to do with you?"

Looking at him, we were almost the same age. So, why was he acting like he was 30 years old and picking up a teen? It was all wrong.  
The blond was beautiful, but I could feel danger in this encounter.

"Sing for me," he told me with softened eyes.  
It was weird. He looked so stern until he asked that of me.

And as I looked at him in disbelief, I couldn't laugh because he was so serious. It was as if he were staking his life on me.  
"You look like you're being judged before going to heaven or hell," I tried to joke.

He lifted his head a bit and eyes became the tangible picture of "akogare". "Because I am. I didn't research all over just to talk to you."  
He chuckled a little. Then, with an embarrassed face, he slightly blushed. "I want you."

"Are you serious?" That was when I laughed at him.  
Maybe someone was playing a joke on me, but at that moment, he took off his gloves and put them into his pockets. He took up my duffel bag and stood beside me. "I am not leaving without you this time."  
"Hey~! What the hell are you doing?" I shouted at him.  
As he caught my wrist and I got up, we looked at each other.

"I watched you perform in a park in Kyoto more than three years ago. And I never found you again." The blond one, who had never introduced himself at all, sighed at me, but his eyes were so persistent.

He watched me as if he were looking right through me, as if he knew everything about me.

And I knew I wasn't an easy person to read. I purposely made myself that way…

"My friend told me you went on a date with him for money," he whispered to me, still holding onto my wrist. People around us were already wondering what was going on, but he didn't care.  
"But you sang to him throughout the whole date."

I gave him cold eyes. I didn't know what this was leading to. I couldn't read him and it frustrated me. I usually could do it very well.

But there was something so charismatic about him, as if you couldn't say no.

"How much do I have to pay you to stay with me?" he asked me.

Insulted, I flicked his hand away from my wrist and took my bag from him. I took my tray, threw it, and left in a huff. But he was still pursuing me. I ran but he chased after me.

"I've been in love with you ever since I've heard you play!" he shouted loudly behind me. "You don't know me, but I know you very well Sakuma Ryuichi-san!"

I stopped to glance at him as he stood several feet away from me while huffing and puffing. His composure was all lost as his sweat dripped to the ground. The calmness of his being was disturbed and I knew somehow that this wasn't something he was used to.  
I had messed him up in some way…

"What the hell do you want from me?!" I shouted at him, thinking he had lost his freakin' mind.

"I want something that I can't have. And you have it, Sakuma-san." He came up to me and put his hands on my shoulders. As he looked deeply at me, he said, "I don't want the world to change you with their stupid rules."

Confused, I looked at him while shaking my head. Without a word, I followed him as he pulled on my sleeve and led me to one of the tall buildings on the street. Quietly, we went up the elevator and he opened a door with a key. Closing the door behind him, I stood at the back of the room while he sat on top of his desk.

"This is my recording studio."  
"Isn't this the place where the contest is being held?" I asked him curiously.  
"That was just a way to get you here. And now that you are, we can just start when you say so."

It was all too good to be true…

"Why are you doing this for me?" I put down my stuff on the seats in front of his desk and stood before him.  
Who wouldn't be skeptical?

Everyone wanted something. That's how life was, unfortunately.

"Because you have the passion that I lost," he directly said. No hesitations, all-seriousness. "I don't want to be the representative anymore for Seguchi-whatever."

"This has nothing to do with me," I said as I threw back his envelope onto his black, smooth desk. "Don't think I'm cheap enough to be bought so easily. I needed money then, but it was out of need, not to sell out."

Then, I laughed at him. "And that 'love' crap, don't try to manipulate me-"  
He suddenly wrapped his arms around my waist and began to kiss me. As I tried to push myself away, I could feel his fingers on me. The coldness was all gone. All that remained was warmth.

I've kissed many people before, both women and men. Each of them had their own thing going on. Some were selfish, some were too giving. Some were easy and some were difficult.

But above all of them, his was very different.

This kiss from a stranger was very, very unique to say the least…

It was as if he were reading my lyrics and put all those feelings into that one moment of time. I couldn't breathe, but I still accepted this kiss as he grabbed onto my shirt, not getting enough. He wanted to consume me in a single breath.

When he let go, he let out a sigh of relief, which touched my ear. "Ever since I heard you sing, it made me think about my life. That song changed me and made me hate myself for becoming the person I was.  
"And I knew I had to change. And I knew that I couldn't do it without finding you."

I closed my eyes as I shook my head. "And what is your name?"  
"Seguchi. Touma Seguchi."  
"All right…I'll sing for you."

He then let go of me and I followed him into one of the booths. I took out my guitar and he set up everything for me. Standing to one side, he nodded his head.

I began to play the guitar and I was so happy that someone wanted to listen to me, to hear how I felt about the world. How I saw it.  
And I sang to him this moody song, whispering in the beginning until I was shouting at the end with all my soul:

"Mm...It's a desire that can't be fulfilled,  
No matter what I do, then or now.  
I pray from the bottom of my soul,  
silently, but who really hears me?

Ah...These are the words that can't reach my lips,  
burning within their own passion,  
repressed beyond the limits of hell  
I wonder why I am still here.

I'm...still alive,  
Can't believe it  
Tell me why  
I'm created to die?

Screaming with all of my heart  
It is still not enough; no, never!  
Everything, it is all crashing down fast.  
I find myself in all of this chaos  
but it's not the person I recognize  
And still I ask you, in deep vain,  
"Hold me."

Yeah~...The blood drops like pouring rain  
Chocolate that is so poisonous  
And I try my best to understand  
Why all my love goes to nothing-

Oh, yet I search  
while praying so hard  
that I'm not  
already condemned.

I crucify myself before you  
and yet you still laugh at my 'foolishness'?  
Everything is forsaken by My will.  
I crush glass that looks like white crystals  
where my dreams are all created from  
and to you do I present them.  
Hold me...  
(Let go.)

[instrumental]

I reach so far within, inside me  
that I do not know how to get out, escape  
I kill myself always thinking,  
"Love, Pain; the same."  
I pierce this body without mercy  
where no one else is able to enter.  
So who is this voice? Something distant.  
But it's too late now,  
Do not save me!  
You failed me,  
You still try-  
And so then, I respond,  
'Dying...  
Crying…'"

"Ikiteru" was the song I sang in the park long ago. It was my last hope and the tangible form of my wish. And after my tired heart was going to die on me, someone had heard me after all…

When I finished, he clapped for me and said, "From now on, just worry about lyrics and the song. I'll take care of everything else. I promise."

And he kept his promise to me from then on.

Even though, for a time, I lived in an apartment all that time, kept like a mistress, I didn't care. I didn't believe in anything in the world, but Touma made me believe in him. He showed me what it really meant for me to believe in myself.

As he caressed me and made love to me on that bed, we were making lyrics. Loving one another, killing one another. Taking and giving.

We never could fully understand one another and yet we did at the same time. We were selfish, wanting everything and getting jealous if we couldn't.

"Why did you say 'yes' to me?" he asked one time as he smoked a cigarette and I slept on the bed. "I lost my head that day. I had no shame."  
I took his cigarette and crushed it in the ashtray. I looked into his eyes and said, "Because you're like my music. You wouldn't stop at anything until you were heard."

Running his fingers through my hair, he slightly smiled.  
"I came to you because I wanted everyone to know what a fallen angel looked like. So beautifully cruel. So destructive and creative. So close to god himself, and yet so sincerely human."

"Am I the Angel of life or the Angel of death?"

He took my shoulders and began to kiss the bare skin around my heart. "I can never tell."  
He smirked. "And that's all right. That's how you should always be."

**Owari. / The End.**

**-**  
**Author's note:** For being so happy about the 1000 hits already to the site, I came up with this. Since I feel like writing lyrics for sing-alongs, I'll do this for the many characters I admire and are close to my heart. Of course, you knew I had to start with Ryuichi.  
I wanted to share my feelings and my perceptions of these characters as well the songs that are the most prominent in my life. These are my favorites because I'm in them as well as they are a part of me.

For Ryuichi, I picked this because he is silent and screaming at the same time. He is childish and an adult at the same time, but he can't seem to resolve them within himself even though people around him think he's just a child.  
Ibara no Namida is my ultimately favorite L'arc song and I felt that it would be appropriate to use it for Ryuichi since he has so many sides. They're all complex. And yet he still tries his best between the person he presents and the person he is deep inside.  
I like Touma in this piece because he wants to keep Ryuichi as "himself". He wants to protect the passion and innocence of everything that makes Ryuichi. And yet he knows Ryuichi can't be controlled because he doesn't follow the rules of society, which he admires.

But pushing all that aside, I've presented my own version of a "song fic" with little twists and turns.

So thanks for reading! We'll see another part in the next 500 hits.

As always, thanks for your support.

Translation:  
Akogare - yearning  
Ikiteru - to live

**[Ikiteru. Part 1 completed  
May 1, 2004, 1:52 AM]**


End file.
